“Ah,” Thompson murmured.
“I am also interested in Kingston because he is tall. I will come to that in a moment.” I rested my hand on the gold head of Denis’s walking stick. “The voyage continued without much drama, except Eden and Mr. Warrilow resorting to fisticuffs at the dining table. But once the ship landed, there was plenty of drama. First, the ship was delayed. They had to sit downriver for a long time until they were able to inch up to the wharves to unload. This worried men who had many surreptitious things to do. Finally, the ship docked.
“As usual, customs officials boarded the ship first, consulted the cargo master, and then went below to search the hold. Mr. Fitzgerald, who had gathered stolen artwork—I am afraid I don’t know what, but I will leave that to Mr. Thompson—slipped down to the hold and paid the agents some coin to leave his things alone. He then had the items unloaded to waiting carts, which slipped off in the night. Fitzgerald allowed the customs agents to take one object, his painted box, for which he did have paperwork of a sale. This paperwork might have been forged, or perhaps his tale of buying it from a man on St. Maarten is true. Mr. Fitzgerald then disembarked with the other passengers and made his way to White’s to take rooms, like the very respectable gentleman he paints himself to be.”
Seabrook’s face had gone wan. “He bribed my men? Bloody hell. I know corruption goes on, but my men?”
“I believe Warrilow witnessed this exchange of money take place, or he guessed. Possibly Fitzgerald visited him that night and paid him to keep his silence.”
“And killed him,” Eden said with conviction.
“No.” I shook my head. “Not Fitzgerald. He is guilty of smuggling artwork, possibly stolen ones, but not of murder. That was someone else. I haven’t come to Mr. Laybourne. It was he who brought a stolen cache of weapons from the islands to England. I believe it is part of a ring—the weapons are seized on their way from Britain to South America. I imagine the smugglers take only a part of each cache and send the rest on, to avoid an intense hunt for the missing weapons. Mr. Laybourne was in charge of the boxes that went to England on the Dusty Rose.
“Mr. Warrilow found him out somehow, and took one of the carbines as evidence, perhaps to use it to blackmail him once they’d landed. Laybourne was seen speaking to Warrilow in Warrilow’s lodgings, though Warrilow would not let Laybourne into his room. Perhaps Warrilow extracted money from Laybourne at that time, or perhaps they arranged to meet later for the exchange—we likely will never know. Mr. Laybourne was awaiting his payment for ferrying the weapons, enough money for him to contemplate golden retirement near the Yorkshire Dales. I say waiting, because if Laybourne had already received the money, I imagine he’d have lived somewhere other than the dreadful boarding house I found him in. He was most relieved that someone had killed Warrilow, which saved him from having to pay out in blackmail.”
“But then Laybourne was killed too,” Eden said.
“Another reason I’ve dismissed Fitzgerald as the murderer. He’d have had no worry about Laybourne. Fitzgerald had managed to cart away his artwork, but Laybourne was doing something even worse, smuggling weapons. Laybourne would not be a threat to Fitzgerald, but perhaps the other way around, if Fitzgerald saw the wrong thing at the wrong time. No, Laybourne was killed because of the gun smuggling. He knew too much—who was doing it, and how the weapons were taken off the ship and transported on, and to whom. Dangerous knowledge.”
Thompson tapped his fingertips together, his only sign of excited curiosity. “And how was it done? Who took the weapons from the ship?”
“The customs agents,” I said without hesitation. “Who is better able to take whatever they wish from a ship and store it wherever they like for however long they want? The customs agents, who go through the hold and seize goods until duties are paid or owners can prove they are bringing the things into the country legally. The agents who boarded the Dusty Rose went straight to the boxes of the guns and carted them off, making certain to also take with them plenty of other innocuous things, which they brought to the Custom House as suspected contraband. Customs agents do this last all the time. The agents likely didn’t expect Fitzgerald, who almost got in the way with his smuggled artwork, but why not make a few coins by accepting his bribe? Laybourne, who knew who the customs agents were—probably had worked with these men when he’d been a customs agent himself—had to be killed.”
“Why?” Eden asked, perplexed and horrified. “Isn’t that like killing the golden goose? He’d just brought them valuable cargo.”
“Because Laybourne was retiring. We can’t ever know, I suppose, exactly why they did it. Perhaps he tried to blackmail them. Perhaps they simply could not risk him telling anyone how things were done.”
“Good Lord.” Eden blinked.
“Likewise, Warrilow was murdered because he’d spoken to Laybourne, revealing that he knew about the guns. Whether he understood the entire business or simply knew Laybourne was involved, again, I do not know. But the agents could not take the chance that Warrilow would not divulge all.”
Thompson nodded. “Gun running is a bad business, conducted by bad men.”
I continued. “What the customs agents also did not expect to find in the hold was a small boy. A stowaway, who’d sought freedom in England. This boy had seen the agents take things away—would he understand what he’d observed? Or would anything he had to say be dangerous? He was just a child, after all. But then they noted the boy in the company of Major Eden, who was also on the ship and might well put two and two together. That same boy has seen these agents lurking outside his home, and I believe the lad to be in great danger.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Eden declared.
Seabrook took all this in, his jaw slack, distress in his eyes. He rose to his full height, thin-boned fists clenching. “Who are these agents, Captain Lacey? I will have them arrested at once.”
“I suppose we must ask our witnesses.” I nodded at Grenville, who stepped to the door and opened it.
Brewster, at a signal from Grenville, ushered in the two boys, one from across the sea, the other London born and bred.
Both gazed at Mr. Seabrook looming over us, their eyes going wide.
“That’s ’im.” Harry pointed a stubby finger. “That’s ’im what I saw lurking outside me gran’s the night Warrilow was done. And then going into Mr. Laybourne’s house.”
Robbie moved closer to Brewster’s thick leg. “He was outside our house, by the church.”
“Are you certain?” I asked. “This is very important lads.”
Seabrook backed a step. “Nonsense. I never went near Wellclose Square.”
“I saw him on the docks when I ran from the ship,” Robbie said in a near whisper. “He was taking boxes away.”
My friends were now on their feet. “I thought that was Kingston,” Eden said in confusion. “Tall and thin. Harry heard his name.”
“That were a different bloke,” Harry said. “Depend upon it.”
“Kingston did visit Warrilow,” I said. “He and his wife claim it was to pray for Warrilow’s soul. But who knows why Warrilow truly asked to speak to him? To confide in him what he knew about the guns? But Kingston was turned away, and so was Major Eden, with Laybourne fobbed off after a few words. Then Warrilow, who’d made an appointment for later that night, one he believed would bring him much blunt, pretended to retire for the evening. He rose and dressed again once all else in the house were asleep, and admitted Mr. Seabrook himself. But Mr. Seabrook had come to kill him. Perhaps he hadn’t intended to, until he realized Warrilow’s demand for money would never cease, and knew the man had to be silenced. The pitcher in the washbasin was handy. One blow, as Warrilow turned away, perhaps to fetch the carbine, perhaps to count the money Seabrook gave him. It felled him. Seabrook then wiped the pitcher clean or clean enough, and returned it to the stand. Mrs. Beadle, in her zeal to scrub down the room for the next guest, took the pitcher away and washed it, never noticing, completing the erasure of the blood.”